


No Loss No Gain

by jayhood



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24306511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayhood/pseuds/jayhood
Summary: Kent's team lost to Gotham Blades tonight. He gained something else instead.
Relationships: Kent Parson/Jason Todd
Comments: 9
Kudos: 65





	No Loss No Gain

Kent hates playing Gotham Blades. Any sane hockey player would. It’s a rare game that doesn’t end in Blades’ loss, and Gothamites sure love to express their patriotic attitude through rioting, egging the visiting team bus, or, in rare but not that rare for Kent to be totally comfortable, cases - kidnapping the whole team and holding them for ransom. That mainly happens with Metropolis team, so thank god for small favors.

When someone makes a comparison between Vegas and Gotham, Kent always scoffs, internally. Gotham wishes it had that Vegas has. Like, way less pollution, regular organized crime and not batshit-crazy one, and most importantly, a team that wins.

All Gotham has to offer instead is some weirdly themed casinos. 

Take Iceberg Lounge for example. Last time Aces were feeling safe enough to go out after a game, it wasn’t that long after its owner was arrested for hijacking Thanksgiving Parade with turkeys, for fuck sake. And, the city itself was in a middle of gang war, which meant nobody really was in a mood to watch hockey. So, Blades invited them to the casino/night club, Aces went and spent somewhat a good time. Blades players were sweethearts, really, it turned out. But the club itself was way too cold, and what was up with all the penguins? They were cool birds, but it really wasn’t all that hygienic, in Kent’s opinion. It was a shame Catwoman didn’t have a nightclub. Kent had a feeling he would have had a much better time there.

This time, Aces were feeling daring. They lost spectacularly, but no one was even upset about it, because rumor had it, all Blades were doped with something called Venom? Without their knowledge, too, so the higher ups set up a re-match on Aces home ice. And so tonight, they were out on the town all by themselves.

Nobody felt too brave to seek out new hotspots, and instead when Swoops offered to go to Iceberg Lounge again, almost everyone agreed. Except Kent, he didn’t like low temperatures after almost a decade in a desert. But no way he was leaving the team alone.

All in all, it turns out better when he was expecting. Apparently, it’s new management: no birds out and about, and the temperature was pleasantly cool, like on the ice rink, and not like in a meat freezer.

There’s less people with suspicious bulges under their suits. And there is a decent music his guys decided to grove to. It’s not something Kent does when he’s sober (and there’s no way he’s drinking in Gotham). So after an hour or so, Kent decides he can leave his guys alone for a minute and goes to the bar for some peace and quiet.

And he almost gets it, but when it’s only a few feet between him and the bar, someone calls out.

“Kent Parson!”

It’s not a good thing to be recognized in Gotham, even if they lost. So Kent is halfway tempted to make it seem like he didn’t hear it. But he is not given a choice. Strong hand engulfs him on one-armed hug, and a deep rough voice that makes alarm go off in Kent’s head, says in his ear.

“Please play along and you or anyone on your team will never need to pay for anything here again.”

With this, the strangers turns them to face each other and Kent’s heart stops. You can’t call the man beautiful. He’s in his mid to late twenties, just like Kent, and has the worst hairstyle ever, the one that makes you think he’s trying too hard to emulate Hollywood gangster chic. The cut of his suit and red shirt with one button open too many, doesn’t really help the matter. But the bluest eyes he ever seen that make his breath hitch.

The man smiles in a very familiar fashion. It’s what Kent looks like when the press asks him questions about Jack. The smile is as bright as it’s fake.

“Ex?” Kent mouths.

The man shakes his head and brings his lips to Kent’s ear again.

“Worse. It’s my father.”

Yeah, Kent knows a thing or two about that, too.

Kent hugs the man so they would have a reason to keep standing close, without risk of anyone overhearing.

“Are we just avoiding him?” Kent asks, with his face tucked into the man’s chest. Yeah, he’s that tall but Kent, strangely, doesn’t find it annoying. “Or are we freaking him out?”

The man huffs a laugh, his breath on Kent’s skin makes his hair to stand up.

“I am all for latter but he’s not easily freaked.”

Kent doesn’t let go completely but steps back just enough that the man can see his eyebrows raised in ‘is that a challenge?’.

The man shrugs, grinning widely for a second before suppressing it by the facade of pleasant coolness.

Fuck it, decides Kent. Fuck the man for showing him his real joy and immediately covering it up with fake, fuck his father who probably is a mafiosi and certainly is an asshole, fuck Jack Zimmermann who kissed his boyfriend two years ago without so much as a heads-up that rumours of their rumours are going to come back with vegeance. Fuck Kent, because he isn’t unhappy in a closet, but he isn’t happy either. At this point in his life, his career, it’s not about being queer, if he can even count as queer. It’s about Kent always compromising and censuring himself, even when doing something that could result in a trade or retirement doesn’t mean he’s going to end up starving on the streets or something, his accomplishments forgotten or discredired.

He’s Kent fucking Parson, for better or for worse, and nobody can take it away from him.

He kisses the man.

It’s not something spontaneous. He deliberately looks at the man’s lips, then back in his eyes, and shortens the distance between them slowly, telegraphing his movements and giving the man space to back off if he wants to.

“He’s close?” He murmurs, their breath mingling. The man nods, his hands coming up to Kent’s hips. “You cool with kissing?”

Man’s answer is physical but so shy and sweet.

Kent doesn’t think the man has a lot of experience, only a little more than Kent himself and that’s a pretty low bar. But it’s pleasant, and not at all awkward, until there’s someone clearing their throat.

And holy shit. When Kent looks back, it’s Bruce Wayne standing here. He wears a grimace for a second there before exchanging it for the same expression as his son had: fake-happy. It makes Kent stand in front of the man he just kissed and offer his hand for a handshake, imagining how the bones in Wayne’s hand would creak in his grip. He has a thing against fathers that drive their sons to kiss strangers at parties to avoid them, especially when they build like tanks.

“Kent Parson, Las Vegas Aces,” he introduces himself.

“I know,” Wayne replies and grips his hand. “So, you know Jason how?”

Wow, okay.

The man, Jason, apparently, moves and probably opens his mouth to speak, but Kent waves a hand.

“We go way back,” he says. Smiles, showing his teeth.

They’re mostly fake ones, but hey, he spent a lot of money on them, and they look better then his own did.

“I didn’t know that,” Wayne says. “He never talked about you.”

“Says more about you than me, if you ask me.”

“How way back are we talking, exactly?” Wayne presses. “I don’t remember you at his funeral.”

Which. The fuck?

“Yeah, well, hockey schedule is a bitch,” Kent says anyway. “Jason doesn’t hold it against me, it’s not like he was there either.”

At least, Kent assumes.

“It’s not like anyone was there,” Jason adds, sounding… annoyed, actually, and not at all weirded out. Ugh, Gotham. “You didn’t even invite Dick.”

“I didn’t know you _wanted_ Dick there,” Wayne says.

“He’s still pissed at you about it, that’s all,” he says.

Jason sneaks a hand around Kent’s waist and draws him closer. Whoever Dick was, it wasn’t a topic Jason wanted to explore, even if he brought him up first. That’s Kent’s cue.

“Sorry,” he says to Wayne without bothering to look even a little bit sorry at all. “I promised my boys I’ll introduce them.”

He drags Jason to the VIP section of this floor, where he’s certain even Wayne won’t be able to follow them as it is reserved for Aces only tonight.

The man standing guard there eyes them strangely, his gaze stopping at Jason with an unreadable expression in his eyes. Fuck him, too.

“He’s with me,” Kent says, with a hand on Jason’s lower back. 

The guard lips are twitching but he does stop staring at them. Kent moves forward and looks back at Jason when he doesn’t follow.

“Holy shit,” Jason says, dazed. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No, I know, you’re Jason… Wayne? Bruce Wayne is your father and an asshole, so you must be naturally super sweet to turn out not like him at all. And you apparently died? Once?”

Jason fights a smile and loses. It’s one of those wins Kent is going to cherish forever.

“Something like that,” he says.

The evening goes really great after that. The team meets Jason and really likes him. If anyone notices how close they are sitting, or that they are constantly touching (for some reason; Kent doesn’t know which, because it’s not like his father is still around, but he’s not going to complain), they don’t comment on that.

Also, nobody from the Aces has to pay for their drinks because it turns out Jason is the new owner.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking it should end in "woke up married" trope; wadda ya think, guys?


End file.
